Ptšjolkin wrote on social media that his employment contract had been terminated.

The director was told his contract would be ended by Kaarel Rundu, head of the Tallinn Board of Education, at a meeting on Monday, news portal Delfi wrote. His last working day is August 21.

In a Facebook post published on Tuesday, Ptšjolkin wrote about the post-war situation in the Baltic states. "It's 1948. The authorities are unable to overcome the anti-Soviet resistance in the Baltic states, and to eradicate its social base, they carry out the first mass deportation of 'hostile elements' after the war," wrote the hobby school director.

He also mentioned the June 1941 deportation, during which approximately 40,000 people were forcibly deported from the three Baltic states. He said that Stalin succeeded in what the Germans could not: making the Balts love Germany.

In response, Ptšjolkin said he often wrote about Estonian history in his posts, drawing primarily from the book series Namedni (Observations) by Leonid Parfyonov, a legendary Russian journalist and publicist currently in opposition to the Russian government.

He stressed that the content of the post was not his personal assessment but rather a presentation of facts, which are clearly stated in Parfyonov's book. 

Mayor of Tallinn Jevgeni Ossinovski (SDE) told ERR on Wednesday that the comments were "morally unacceptable".

The Tondiraba Hobby School, located on Punane tänav in Tallinn, is a municipal educational institution that offers extracurricular education to children living in Tallinn and its surrounding areas. According to the school's website, it operates 75 different groups with over 2,500 students.

Ptšjolkin has been a member of the Estonian Center Party since 2009 and is also a member of the Tallinn City Council.

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